(I may not have done this step before. fdisk warns that the partition cannot be started if not set as active)

*Restored Image created as local / partition / to image in 2003*Reboot*XP starts without a hitch!!! So now I'm not sure what went wrong before... but I do know now My images will boot when restored to a new HD. Guess I'll have to try again with out setting active and see what happens... but not tonight

If anything can go wrong, it already did, and you just now noticed it.

I couldn't resist either. Using an old computer, the first HD contained Win XP (5005 MB), a hidden Win XP (1051 MB) and a Logical drive (3475 MB). I made a Ghost 2003 image of the Win XP partition, writing the image to the second HD.

I replaced the first HD with a 20 GB HD and deleted the partitions on the new HD. It was then 20 GB of Unallocated Space. I restored the image to the Unallocated Space and chose 5020 MB for the partition size. To my surprise the OS booted normally.

I deleted the partition from the new HD, rebooted and created a 5020 MB Primary partition and didn't set it active. The remainder of the HD was Unallocated Space. I restored the Ghost 2003 image to this partition and when the computer restarted I received, "Operating System not found".

I used the PM disc and sure enough, the Primary Partition had a Status of None. I set the partition Active and Win XP booted normally.

I was surprised that my first test worked. Restoring to Unallocated Space. The message from ckcc and my subsequent tests is that if you restore to a partition then it must be set active. Either before you restore or with PM after the Restore.

well, first, lemme say that i *do* keep an image of my c drive, even when no o/s resides there, cuz you need that if you lose your c, altho i guess you could simply copy* files elsewhere, and no actual image is necessary. but my c drive is small .. primarily for this reason.

next, the drive that contains the o/s & prgms is going to be doing most of the work, so it is more likewly to die, than say, a storage-only drive .. if that;'s what you use your pri-master for (c drive)

I'm getting the same results as you. My second test I didn't set partition active before the restore and it failed to boot. "operating system not found on any devices".

First I tried fdisk/mbr... still no bootSo then I used fdisk to set partition active and... booted right up!

So that must be where I screwed up last time. Just didn't remember having to set partition active.... was thinking fdisk/mbr fixed the problem....I wasn't sure about anything I was doing at the time anyway... I'm glad this came up so now I know for sure.

I'm glad to see that restoring to unallocated space works fine also. Could save the extra steps.

May have to dig deeper to see why it works one way and not the other.... still leaves me wondering if the original MBR is getting restored or a new one is being created.... and can that affect anything in a bad way?

If anything can go wrong, it already did, and you just now noticed it.

I couldn't resist either. Using an old computer, the first HD contained Win XP (5005 MB), a hidden Win XP (1051 MB) and a Logical drive (3475 MB). I made a Ghost 2003 image of the Win XP partition, writing the image to the second HD.

I replaced the first HD with a 20 GB HD and deleted the partitions on the new HD. It was then 20 GB of Unallocated Space. I restored the image to the Unallocated Space and chose 5020 MB for the partition size. To my surprise the OS booted normally.

So Brian,Did you still have the option to boot the second install of XP... if it were added back to the disk? Is it referenced in the MBR? I assume that is what NightOwl is really trying to find out...If you restore the OS's from partition only images then recreate the data partitions on a multi-boot system to a new HD will everything work as it should? Without having to do a whole disk image.

I have no experience with multi-boot except for the time I accidetally installed XP twice.

If anything can go wrong, it already did, and you just now noticed it.

It looks to me like you guys haven't been controlling all variables in your tests. Simply removing all partitions from a disk does not remove the 400-odd bytes of boot code from the MBR. That means that when you restore a partition from a test image and it boots, it does not prove whether the MBR boot code was restored from the image or whether it's still the same old pre-existing MBR.

IME, a Ghost 2003 partition-from-image restore does not restore the MBR boot code. However, note I almost never use any command-line switches when creating or restoring, so that could make a difference. There might be a Ghost command-line switch to save/restore the MBR (NightOwl should know), but frankly, I wouldn't care to have the MBR in my partition images. If I want to save the MBR, I do it separately with my mbrsaver.com utility or TeraByte's mbrwork.exe utility. Mbrwork can save a backup of the entire first track (LBA 0-62). Mbrsaver only saves LBA 0 (the MBR sector), but has the unique advantage of being able to restore the boot code from the backup without destroying the partition table--very handy if your restored partitions are different sizes from the originals.

The MBR is nothing more than a dumb launcher. You need a launcher to direct the boot process to a partition, but usually there's nothing special about it. It is not part of a partition, so strictly speaking, it does not belong in a partition image.

I suggest thinking of a partition's contents like eggs in an egg carton. If we're talking about the egg, you don't need to know anything about the carton. You can move the egg to any old egg carton, whether it's a 12-item carton, a 18-item carton, styrofoam, cardboard, or even the egg rack in your refrigerator. It's still the same egg, and the carton it's in makes no difference.

Your partition, whether it's original or restored from an image, is the egg. The disk is the carton. You can move the partition around to a different spot on the disk or to another disk. You do not need any information about the original disk or the MBR on that disk.

(Note that a whole-disk image is different. There, we're talking about the whole carton, not each egg individually. It would be appropriate for a whole-disk image to include images of each partition plus the MBR.)

Just restore your partition images, and if the disk does not already have the launcher code in the MBR, just use any of a wide variety of tools to add that. "Fixmbr", "fdisk /mbr", and many other utilities can install generic MBR boot code. I believe that tools like Partition Magic automatically install generic boot code when you partition a new disk. TeraByte's mbrwork can either install generic boot code, or restore from a backup if you saved one beforehand.

If your boot code really is special or you are multibooting, you can back it up. But boot managers are so easy to reinstall that I rarely bother to backup my MBR. All my own computers multiboot, but when I upgrade a hard disk I often move/resize partitions, add some OS's, and remove others. So, a backup of my previous boot manager configuration is seldom reusable anyway.

Dan,The first time I used a new drive and the second time I Used MBR wizard to delete the MBR and then did a disk wipe of the entire drive hoping there would be no trace left of a MBR. So I can't really explain how it got there.

If anything can go wrong, it already did, and you just now noticed it.

I had never restored to unallocated space... never realized you could do that.... so I tried it as you did. But instead of just deleting partitions, I deleted the entire MBR using MBR Wizard... which then the drive showed all unallocated space. then I restored the image to unallocated space and specified the size(5 gig of 20 total).

Reset puter and would not boot!! No error message... just a blinking cursor! tried 3 times!

So I ran fdisk /mbr and reset again.... Booted right up!

If anything can go wrong, it already did, and you just now noticed it.